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A Chicago High School baseball umpire was shot in the face and killed after asking his neighbors to keep it in because he had work the next morning.
Carlos Rivera, 50, was shot in the second-floor apartment building on North Whipple Street last Sunday night as he went to his neighbors. ABC 7 reports.
Police said the man reported a loud noise that propped him up, and Rivera was shot in the face and body as he left his apartment.
He was rushed to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he died.
No arrest has yet been made for the murder, as the Windy City faces a 39 percent increase in violent crime.
Carlos Rivera, 50, a Chicago High School baseball umpire, was shot and killed in front of his apartment building after telling his neighbors to shut up
The victim had reported noise pollution on Sunday and was shot in the face and body
Rivera (left) was an avid baseball fan who not only refereed schools but also local teams
Rivera, an umpire with the Illinois High School Association, was an avid baseball fan and also refereed local teams in the city.
In mourning the loss of his brother, Angel Rosario said his family is heartbroken.
“I know God has a plan, but it’s so hard to believe this was part of it,” Rosario wrote on Rivera’s funeral page. “I pray God has a special game for him to umpen in heaven, which is why he was summoned so quickly.”
Rivera’s son, Carlos, also posted a photo of his father attending his partner’s baby shower and said the late referee was delighted to meet his future granddaughter.
Max Rundberg described Rivera as a hardworking colleague as he mourned him on Twitter.
“When I say a hard-working man, I mean a hard-working man,” Rundberg wrote. He would do his early morning work and finish his day in the early afternoon and then go straight to umpiring a baseball game. He would play about 300 games in a spring/summer and fall. We will certainly miss you, Los.’
Another said: ‘A great man who has given so much to the game. I was privileged to watch many games while he was behind the plate and I will always cherish the conversations we had. A cheerful person with a big heart. Condolences to his family.’
The murder of the soon-to-be grandfather occurred five days before a seven-year-old boy was shot and killed by a stray bullet on Chicago’s West Side.
Rivera’s family said they were heartbroken at his death and noted that he would soon become a grandfather. Rivera is pictured posing with his dog
Rivera’s death on Whipple Street is one of the latest shootings in the Windy City
The shooting broke out in Humboldt Park around 8:22 p.m. Wednesday and saw at least one bullet through the window of the child’s home on the 2600 block of West Potomac Avenue.
As the shots rang out, the as-yet-unidentified child had been in the bathroom, police revealed, with one of the wayward bullets entering the residence and hitting the boy in the stomach.
The child, who was still alive, was then rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition, where he was operated on to save his life.
However, several hours later, despite the best efforts of the doctors, the victim succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.
Detectives are now watching private security videos in the hopes of identifying and tracking down the perpetrators who carried out the shooting, who are still at large.
The shots are said to have come from an alley behind the boy’s house, where several shell casings were found.
The incident comes as the final blow to the dwindling image of the embattled city under Lightfoot, which has seen crime rise to numbers not seen in decades since taking office in late 2019.
A seven-year-old boy died after being shot by a stray bullet while washing his hands at his home on the west side of Chicago, officials said Thursday. Officers were photographed outside the home in Humboldt Park Wednesday night
The incident came hours after Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed giving himself an annual pay rise to keep up with inflation. She currently raises over $200,000 a year
Violent crimes are still across the board in the Windy City
According to the latest statistics from the Chicago Police Department, crimes are still on the rise after a spate of incidents in both 2021 and 2020.
The homicide rate is up a whopping 32 percent since 2019, with 564 homicides recorded since the start of the year — compared to the 428 seen during that period in 2019.
However, the homicide rate has fallen slightly since 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when officials recorded a record 644 homicides, a mark that was then surpassed in 2021 when there were 676 homicides.
The number was the most seen since the mid-1990s.
Since then, the homicide rate has fallen slightly by 17 percent, but robbery, robbery and general crimes have all risen sharply from last year — which was one of the worst crime rates in the city’s entire history.
The number of shootings in the Windy City has risen from the previous weekend, when nine murders and 31 victims were reported.
As of this week, 2,313 shooting incidents have been reported in 2022.